IT management
Outsourcing IT management: what do you arrange, and what do you look out for?
Short answer
Outsource the management that takes knowledge and continuity: the network, the firewall, backups, accounts, laptops and servers. Keep the decisions about your organisation and the ownership of your data and passwords yourself. Put in the contract what the management covers, when the provider can be reached, what it costs per month and how you can leave with all your data.
What do you outsource, and what do you keep?
Outsourcing does not mean your IT becomes someone else’s. You have the work done by people who know the trade, and you stay in charge.
| Have it done | Keep yourself |
|---|---|
| Looking after the network, firewall and internet connection | The choice of which systems you use |
| Managing accounts, licences and permissions | Ownership of your data, domain name and licences |
| Setting up and rolling out laptops | Deciding who gets access to what |
| Making backups and testing restores | Your own copy of the admin passwords |
| Updates and security patches | The budget and the priorities |
| Fixing outages | The contact person who reports issues |
The right-hand column matters most. An organisation that no longer has its own passwords and does not know whose name the domain is in has not outsourced its management. It has given it away.
What belongs in a good contract?
An IT management contract does not need to be thick. It does need to answer a few questions.
- What it covers. A list of systems, accounts and devices. What is not on the list is not covered, and that is fine as long as both sides know.
- When they can be reached. With us that is Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:00. If you need someone outside those hours as well, you agree on-call as a paid extra. Be wary of a provider that promises to be reachable at any hour for the same money.
- How you report an outage. One address or one number, and an agreement on what happens next.
- What it costs. A fixed monthly price for the management, and clarity up front about what is charged separately.
- Backups. What is kept, for how long, where, and how often restoring is tested. A backup that has never been restored is an assumption.
- The exit. How you get back all your data, documentation and passwords if you stop. This is the most important agreement, precisely because you will hopefully never need it.
How do you recognise a bad match?
Most problems with an IT partner show in the first conversation.
- You get no overview of what runs at your place, even when you ask.
- Passwords and documentation are “not something you need”.
- Every question ends in a new product or a new licence.
- Nobody can say who really knows your environment. There is a ticket system, but no person.
- The domain name or the Microsoft account is in the supplier’s name.
A good partner makes itself unnecessary for knowledge, and stays necessary for the work. That sounds contradictory, but it is the difference between being dependent and simply having it in good order.
How does a switch from one provider to another go?
Step by step, in a fixed order. With us there are five.
- Inventory. We map what runs: network, accounts, licences, servers, backups, the website. Including what nobody remembers any more. Passwords and ownership of domain and licences are put in your name along the way.
- Plan. You get on paper what moves, in which order and what it will cost per month.
- Trial move. Whatever moves, we test on a copy first. The old environment keeps running.
- Switch-over. At an agreed moment everything moves. Where possible, the old environment stays in place for a while as a safety net.
- Aftercare. We check that everything works, and only then do we clear away the old environment.
How that works with us exactly is on the switching page.
How do we approach it?
We are two people, and you always talk to someone who does the work. We manage the workplace (Microsoft 365, Intune, laptops), the network and security and, if you want, the hosting. Not sure yet what you want to keep yourself? Then it starts with advice. Even if the conclusion is that little needs to change.